Oct. 11--Even as North Carolina was still recovering from Hurricane Florence, Michael was carving a path of havoc on Thursday, downing trees and power lines in Guilford County and making some roads impassable.

Maybe we can be smarter as we face the future?

One thing should be clear: When North Carolinians, especially legislators and government officials, wrestle with issues such as how to handle hog waste and coal ash, how much development to allow on beaches and in other vulnerable areas and whether to promote the use of cleaner energy, the debates aren't just abstract discussions about politics, money or being business-friendly. They can also be about life and death and whether our way of doing things is sustainable. It's folly to ignore solid science about climate change when warming is already having noticeable effects. We can expect more frequent major hurricanes and ones that, like Michael and Florence, are difficult to predict and extremely wet.

It's folly, in other words, to continue the policies adopted in 2012, when the legislature passed a law ordering state and local agencies to disregard scientific models showing expected sea-level rise when setting coastal development policies. So coastal development boomed.

North Carolina could help slow climate change by adopting progressive policies such as encouraging clean cars and alternative power sources. The state also can be smarter about planning for the probability of major storms and flooding.

The full extent of the environmental damage from Florence will be discovered as we see how badly the state's rivers, sounds and groundwater have been polluted. Once again, despite warnings and calls for reform, lagoons on industrial farms flooded or failed, releasing hog waste. Industrial chicken farms also flooded. Then there's coal ash and the slow pace at which Duke Energy and the state are moving to close storage ponds, even after the massive spill in 2014 from an old plant into the Dan River near Eden. Hurricane Matthew two years ago sent toxins from a coal-ash pond near Goldsboro into the Neuse River. Florence flooded a coal-ash pond near Wilmington, and environmental groups are questioning regulators' damage assessments.

People across the state are dealing with flooding from Florence's massive rainfall, as much as 15 inches as far inland as Fayetteville and Goldsboro. Another hard lesson is that floodplain maps are outdated. Part of the problem is development -- open land paved for development means less water soaking into the ground. Combine that with more frequent and wetter storms, and you can expect flooding. Many homes flooded by Florence did not have flood insurance. People who live in recognized floodplains are usually required to buy flood insurance. Others probably should.

One of the most disturbing aspects of all this is that North Carolina has failed to learn past lessons. Hurricane Floyd stalled and rained over eastern North Carolina for days, flooding areas not in floodplains and sending millions of gallons of toxic hog waste, plus carcasses, into rivers. That was 19 years ago.

Florence wasn't be the last destructive hurricane to hit the state. Nor was Michael. We need to be smarter about this.